Welcome to River Cafe, Table four, a production of iHeartRadio and Adami Studios.
My phone's going to and take it.
Okay, so it's fun, I said, is it my mom?
Maybe it's your mom? Should we call your mama? I can call you number?
Oh god, no, I would never, should never get off.
Oh let's have it for me.
Let me tell you about Pete ad.
So tell me about the restaurant you worked in. This might be embarrassing to admit, but as a kid, one of my favorite songs was getting to know You from the musical The King and I and I guess getting to know you is what my River Cafe Conversation guests today, Pete Davidson will be for We've only met once, but sometimes, pretty rarely you meet someone and you know they are
going to be a friend. We met over food. Lorne Michael's introduced us at a dinner in the River Cafe, and then he came back with his friends last Saturday. You probably share a lot of attitudes and values on politics, hypocrisy, humor, and other subjects. Usually I have a list of questions, but today I might throw them in the bin and we'll just talk. Getting to know you pete.
Indeed, hello everybody, thank you for having me.
You've our.
Our bloody mary.
Ye, so would you like to read the recipe?
Yes?
Okay.
This is the recipe for a zucchini and cannelly soup. It says it served six four hundred grams of zucchini, ten canelly beans, one head of celery finally chopped, one garlic clove, one bunch of parsley leaves, extra virgin olive oil. And then you roughly cut the zucchini into small pieces, and then peel and finally chop the garlic and chop the parsley. You drain and rinse the canelly beans, heat one tablespoon of bot oil in a thick bottom pan
and fry the celery and parsley until soft. And then you add the garlic and zucchini and cook for ten minutes. You add five tablespoons of water and scrape up to combine. Then add the beans, stirring for a further five minutes. Mashed together, and drizzle with extra virginile boil. This is best served at room temperature.
Thank you. That was gorgeous.
So you.
Did that beautifully, Thank.
You very much. My first time reading a recipe.
It's kind of a recipe I always say, is partly pros and partly science. You know. It's the kind of combination, isn't it. It gives you the measurements, but it also gives you the poetry of the of what you might be cooking. Do you cook?
I do not.
I do not.
I'm awful at cooking. I could only cook eggs, but that's like a pretty standard. I feel like everybody could cook eggs.
Well, maybe eggs aren't that easy. What are your cooks?
Scrambled ones?
Yeah, what's your tech?
Eg? I just put them in the pan and then mush them around.
Oh you scramble after do you?
Yes?
Scramble them in the path?
Yes?
Interesting?
Yes. I could also add hot water to ramen noodles.
Oh do you?
Yes?
That is all is a talent? Yeah, you have definitely the right guest to have on this food discussion.
I can make a mean cup of noodles.
You can? How do you do that?
Well?
First, I don't know what cup of noodles is.
I go to Costco, Yes, and I get the pre made ramen noodles. And then I go home and since I don't know how to boil water because I'm dumb. I go to the cure egg and I hit the hot water button and.
Then a cure egg. I don't know what that is.
Cure egg is a little.
Coffee Okay, this is a new one.
You know, the little coffee machine that you could put these little coffee pods in like espresso. Yes, yeah, okay, So I usually get I use the hot water from that, and then I dump it the couple of noodles and then I stirred for about four to five minutes.
Over the heat. You mean you don't then you just the hot water cooks the hot water.
Yeah, at least I hope so. And then I eat very hard doodles. Okay, So that is That is about as far as my cooking ghost.
So tell me about food when you were growing up. What was it like in the Davison household.
Oh? My mom she was single parents, so she worked and she was a nurse, and when she got home, she didn't really have time to cook, so we would usually order Chinese food or Italian food. But when she did cook, she's really good at cooking. One thing, chicken cutlets. She's really great, like breaded chicken cutlets. I still have yet to have a better chicken cutlet anywhere else?
Do you know what she did? I would make no idea.
I know, well, I know if I have ever watched, there's usually like there's the raw chicken, and then there's like this plate with yellow stuff in it, the egg. Yeah, and then there's another plate with like bread and like the that stuff breadcrumbs. Right, yeah, there we go. And then she would you know, like season it yeah, yeah, okay, yeah, and then dump it in the.
I gotta make a cook out of you by this interview.
I would love to learn how to cook at least just like one thing, so I could, like.
You observed that, but that's impressive that so she did. She dipped the egg into the egg and then into the bread crumbs. So she dip it back into the egg again. Do you think she did after the two times? Yeah, she's a two time dipper, two time dipper.
Yeah. And then yeah, and then like maybe thirty to forty five minutes later, we would have a chicken collar and I would she would put them on these paper towels, and then I would never I never really ate at the dinner table. I would just like walk by and take each chicken cutlet as soon as it was done being me because because it was so good, and it's like the best time to eat it is when it's like super super fresh. So that was my mom's specialty.
Would you have it often? Would she make it like once a monk.
At least once a week, once a week, Yeah, yeah, we would all look forward to it. Usually it was a weekend thing. It was always a treat when my mom cooked.
Did she have days off?
Not really, not until like I became a teenager, she got a school nursing job, so then her schedule was like the same as me and my sisters. So but at first she was working in the er in the hospital, so her hours were super random, and I was either watching my sister or we would have a babysitter.
So, I mean, the respect that you have I have for your mother. You're being able to work all day have two kids. It's a struggle, you know, It's it's hard.
Yeah, it's hard, and it's hard because you know, nobody's ever really on the same schedule. But that also makes the time when everybody is on the same schedule super memorable and special, like that once a week where we would all get to. Yeah, and holidays were always very big.
What would they tell me about them?
So Thanksgiving, Christmas, even Halloween, even just because we have a very big family. I have six aunts and uncles and like forty something cousins, So the holidays are all, you know, not like an excuse, but we all just get together. And was there.
Food the food at Halloween or Thanksgiving?
Well, Halloween it's pretty lame. But like Thanksgiving, everybody usually has an assignment because there's six aunts and uncles, and my grandma would take care of either the turkey and the stuffing, and then my mom would bring like the sweet potatoes or someone else would bring mashed potatoes. It's just or the asparagus and the dinner rolls. So everybody
had a different assignment. And usually we have it at my aunt's house in Jersey and everybody would show up with like a big tin and everybody puts it on the island and then we spread everything out and it's I guess it's probably the easiest way to do Thanksgiving, yeah, because everybody does a little bit.
Tell me about your grandmother though, did she cook?
She's great at cooking. She always cooks. Both grandmas I'm lucky. I have two grandmas.
Did they live near your house? Was an expedition to go to your grandmother's.
My mom's parents live in Jersey, and then my dad's parents live in Staten Island, which is really close to me.
So yeah, so you and your sister could go over there and have dinner or would you ever do that?
Yeah? Absolutely? And then like they would watch us sometimes and cook for us, and we would stay over their house if my mom had a work late, but they always had a cooked meal for us.
Did you what was Staten Island like food wise?
Food wise, it's pretty it's pretty just Italian, was it. Yeah, it's pretty much just Italian food and like Chinese takeout. But there's so many Italian restaurant it's like it's almost comical how many there are, Like there's like three every block. So one of my dad's friends owns an Italian restaurant that I actually used to work at for a bit I was a busboy. It's a very Italian and very old school, is what I would say. Like you would if you go to Staten Island now, you would feel
like you were walking into like a nineties movie. You know, Dudes, with their shirts open and chest half flowing out and smoking cigarettes and just being like what the fuck. It's very You're like, oh wow, nothing has changed here, which is kind of what I like about it a little bit. Is nobody there gives nobody ever bothers me there. They don't care. That's an island, yeah yeah, and it's it's not like New York. It is part of New York, but it's more part of the Jersey, I would say,
because it's just suburb. Like when I grew up, going to the city was like an event, really, like we're going to go see the Christmas tree, or like we're going to go to that giant toy store where Tom Hanks jumped on the piano. Yeah, it wasn't a regular thing, which is crazy because it's a half hour away.
I grew up in upstate New York, one hundred miles north of New York and on near Woodstock. The country. Restaurants we only went out for special occasions. You know, we went to a restaurant when it was somebody's birthday or you know, some sort of anniversary or something to celebrate. And Italian food was really heavy. It was spaghetti and meatballs, and eggplant parmegani. And it was such a revelation. I
don't know if you've ever been to Italy. When you get to Italy and then you realize, rather like the food in the River cafe that inspired us was as clinging and simple as a grilled piece of fish with maybe some herbs. It's a pasta with a little bit of sauce. It's fish with again, you know, just lemon. And it was such a difference from the kind of food that I thought of as Italian food. Is that am I describing those?
Yeah? I've only been to Italy once, but when I went there, I expected everybody to have curly mustaches and be like, well, but they're they're they're not. It's very it's very chill and laid back, and we've I can only speak for where I live, but I feel like I have adapted this sense of what we think it's like over there over here, but when you get over there, it's it's really not from what I've the little I've experienced, it's not like that at all. It's very chilled and like simple.
Yeah, where did you go? And tell me about your trip to Italy?
Which of venice able to go to the film festival, and I went for like four or five days. I never experienced anything like that, where like everything's on water and but what's crazy is everybody there is just like enjoy it. It's not going to be around and you're like, oh my god, that's terrible.
It's pretty amazing that your first experience of Italy would be Venice, because Venice is just I've been there a lot of times and I almost can't remember the first time I went, because I think my parents took me
when I was quite young. But I always thought how great it would be to see Venice for the first time, you know, that it would be your first time to see Venice and to be because I still after going there so many times and being so used to it, I'm still shocked every time I go, you know, to see, as you say, the water everywhere.
It was a really fun experience.
Did you go to restaurants there?
Yeah, I don't remember any of them, but they were all you couldn't pick a bad one, you know, anywhere you went it was really great and yeah, I had a really great time.
But also food takes you somewhere, doesn't it. When you have the food of a different culture. Have you travel apart from Venice? Have you been to any other countries?
Here in Venice are the only two places I've ever traveled really outside of the United States.
What about within the United States? Have you been doing your.
Work pretty much everywhere? And then you know, I think I've hit all fifty states.
Almost, have you? Yeah, tell me about that? What's that like?
I love the South? I love the South.
What do you love about it?
The food and the al Gore?
You just told me you love Al al Gore? Al Gore, He's so sweet.
You're just like, hello, Peter, it's al Gore. How are you. It's like, like, I don't know it's you. Yeah, he always introduced himself like Peter, it's al Gore. It's like, yeah, I know, I'm well aware.
But what's it like traveling in the South and eating in the South? Do you like the food?
The love the food. I just love the I love the fried chicken and the hearty meals and the grits and like we don't have I didn't grow up with grits or even know what it was. Had to be introduced to it. They just like they know how to really slap on some stuff onto food. It's really I mean,
you can't eat it every day because you die. But if you're like in the mood for like a really hearty like and also everybody there is so upbeat and very just like hello, like they're just like so warm and yeah, yeah, I'm a sucker for like a southern like atmosphere. I think it's so much fun. So I like the food down there a lot.
And when you're working, when you're traveling, when you're performing, do you eat before you were on stage or after or during? How do you do your work and eat?
I started eating before the show is because I would always eat after the shows, and I would usually base my eating off whether I had a good show or not. And then if the show doesn't go well, usually don't want to eat. So there would be like days when I just didn't eat. So now I eat before the show that way, even if it doesn't go well, you've had something.
Yeah, that's emotion well, that is emotional eating. That's saying that, you know, my mood, my performance affects how I feel. I'm therefore it affects how I eat. Yeah, some people might say after a bad show, I feel so crap. I just want to eat or drink or forget it, but you go the other way.
Yeah, yeah, And if something doesn't go well, I become very like I don't want.
Anything, but what is not going well? Mean?
For stand up it's like, you know, you're trying a bunch of jokes or like material and the crowd's just not digging it and there's not a lot of laughs. You know, the excitement of you being there has worn off and now it's just like where is your jokes and where's your material? And we're here to see a show, and you know, when it doesn't go well, there's no more instant of a feeling than stand up comedy. It's like you're either flying high and crushing or it's like
not great. So you know when you're not doing well.
You know, it's very very different. But being a chef and having an open kitchen, you know, so I can watch people when the plate is taken to them and they kind of put this spoon to their mouth and they'll look at the person and go like no, no, or they can smile and share it, or you can It's that kind of It's so different from many ways, but there is that audience and that sense of either
success or failure, you know. And sometimes I can cook the same food and have almost the same menu in the restaurant, can be full, and yet I know at the end of it it was a bad night. I just know. You just come home and you think, Okay, it's time for me to quit because I was so it just wasn't it didn't work. And other nights you feel so elated. And I think that's kind of why a lot of actors like to work in a restaurant, because there is quite a lot of drama going on in a restaurant, do.
You think, Yeah, absolutely. I mean when I worked in a restaurant, it was for like three or four years. But the bus boys hated the waiters. Waiters hated the bus boys, and I mean like afterwards hated the chefs. Yeah. They But after work everything was fine. Everybody was like cool. But during work it was like we're gonna be in each other's faces all day.
Yeah, you know.
But my favorite thing was always sneaking off in the back and eating whatever somebody didn't need.
Oh really, off somebody's plate.
Yeah I didn't. I didn't give other people like you're gross and I'd be like, it's chicken palm.
So tell me about the restaurant you've worked in.
I was called Nucci's South since that island. It's right under the bridge. My dad's good friend runs it.
Uh.
It's it's like pretty well known on the island and well respected and they serve classic Italian food. And you know, they have a playlist of sixty songs on a loop and it's all Frank Sinatra. Yeah, all day. I burned it out of my brain. You used to be able to tell what time it was in the restaurant by what song was playing. What song was say playlist? I mean just like fly Me to the Moon, Yeah, fly Me to the moot, just like every Yeah, and I
would hear that every six hours. So like if I fly Me to the Moon came back, I would know we were halfway through with the day. Because they used to take my phone because I'd be on it all day, did they Yeah, I'd be writing bits or like watching comedy or like sneaking off and because you know, nobody wants to work, So yeah, I used to be able to tell what time it was by what awful music was playing.
That's very funny. So you were sixteen working in a restaurant using your phone to write comedy. When did that start?
I started writing comedy when I was like fourteen, in like school, instead of paying attention, I was just like enamored with Eddie Murphy, Adam Sandler, Jim Carrey. Those three were just like the everything to me. All their movies, their stand up and there's just nothing I ever thought I would do. It's just something I was always really interested in. And then when I was sixteen, I don't know. I told a buddy of mine. I was like, I
really love stand up. I would like to try it, and he's like, you should and I was like nah, And he was like, what's the worst that could happen? Is like, it doesn't good, doesn't get friend, It's like it doesn't go well, and then you don't ever do it again. I was like, yeah, I guess, I guess that's fine. And then I tried it and it went okay enough that I felt like I could try it again.
Where did you try it first?
It was in Staten Island. This club doesn't exist anymore, but it was called the Looney Bin Comedy Club and it was inside of a bowling alley next to an La Fitness, which is a gym and a Wendy's. So it was the craziest group of people who would be like families coming in the bowl, a bunch of people that didn't have enough time to eat dinner, so they're
just going to Wendy's. And then all these like Staten Island jacked musclehead dudes going in and nobody going to see comedy Like it was just it would be so funny. I'd be standing outside the comedy club and I'd be like, maybe they're coming to No La Fit, Oh maybe No Wendy's.
It was crazy. When I was on stage when your jokes weren't going well, you could hear people bowling, so like you tell a joke and it would be super quiet, and then you hear like spare and it would be like so disheartening, And it was, but it was the I had the most fun.
There, and it was the smallest audience you ever had.
Oh. I think the first time I performed, there's like three people and two of them were my friends.
When you write, do you how do you write? We'll tell us first how you write.
Me and my buddy we just usually sit in the room and we hang out for a while and then we just have like a pad out and then like we'll start to We never let go. For me, it's never worked where you're like I'm writing at four o'clock tomorrow. It's like I can't do that. So I usually just vibe with my writing partner and we hang out and we'll write a couple things down and then but we always hang out first and ease into it as opposed
to like, Okay, you're here, let's start. I've just never been good at like be funny, like it usually just has to come and yeah, usually we order Sushi's usually our go to write. Yeah, it's very easy to eat and it's very like you could have, you know, just like it's almost like a cigarette, yeah, because you just have like one thing and you put it down for his acond you come. But sushi's our go to.
What about dates? Do you go on dates with women to a restaurant to see what they're like? Would that tell you about her? Well?
Yeah, it's also just like if you go to a great restaurant, Like even if I'm a date, it's like at least the food was great. Yeah, So like she could go home and be like, you know.
Could not be Yeah, I cannot believe that you could be.
But yeah, it's I've always found it to be that. Or a movie is so easy because a movie you don't even have to talk. You could just be like this explosion, see that explosion, like yeah, you know, or you could just laugh at the same thing and look at each other for a second.
Yeah. But also restaurants can tell you. I suppose if you went to a restaurant and your date was rude to the waiter or was you know, then that would be over, wouldn't it? Would you ever?
Immediately would in my head, I'd be like, Okay, never has.
That ever happened to you? Where you was somebody who was unkind to Yeah.
I don't like the excuse me, It's like wait for the I have walked by and then just lightly do.
I think that? Also, people who have worked in a restaurant, It teaches you something, doesn't it.
The best lessons I've learned have been from working in that restaurant, like learning how to work with people, learning how to act around certain people that don't like you. Whether it's your first job or if it's your job, like you know, those dudes that were like waiters at my restaurant were like superstars. Yeah, like they were so cool because they would like pull up and have cool cars,
and yeah, they would know all the specials. And like I was a bus boy so long people that were a bus boy with me got promoted to waiter while I was still a bus boy because it was just so hot. I couldn't remember the specials. I couldn't do. It's a difficult.
It's really hard.
Yeah, other stuff going on in your life or in your mind, and you still have to be like hello, everybody.
You know so, and also the having to remember which table had that and what table numbers, and also being nice to people you don't want to be nice to. But that's well again why I think maybe actors like to work in a restaurant because they have to act nice even if they're not feeling nice that day, because the people are coming here to have service, I suppose. And as you said, I was touched by what you said about the waiters and the bus boys and the bus boys and the chefs and the chefs and the
other chefs. There's a lot of that going on, but there is there is something really collaborative as well. About working in a restaurant, you know that you are dependent on the bus boy doing his job, and the waiter doing his job, and the you know, the chef doing her job. It must be a bit like being in a movie or theater. If somebody doesn't know their lines, it's it's nice.
One person can mess up the whole train. Everybody kind of needs to be on board.
If we think of food as something we eat when we're hungry, something we might cook, if it's scrambled eggs when we in a hurry, or something we might just pour boiling water over like ramen. Or when you're working feeling emotional, you want to eat or you don't want to eat. Food can be memories, it can be funny, it can be so many things. But it also can be kind of comfort. And so the question that I ask everybody if you are looking for food as comfort, is there a food that you would go to?
Yes? Always, This is the answer to my if you were stuck on an island and only could eat one thing forever, if there's one thing you could eat forever, it's always going to be pasta. Yeah, I find it. Really I don't know how to make it, even though I've watched it being made tons of times, but it can be made in like twenty to thirty minutes. It's very filling. It's tasty, whether you have it with sauce or with butter, or just with salt, or if it's
just dry, you could eat it. Sometimes it's fun to just have a bowl of you know, like penny like dry and you just you know, pick it out one by one. But it's also just the most filling in, like easy kind of meal for me. So it'll always be pasta.
Well, let's go and have some pasta. Thank you, thank you for having me to visit the online shop of the River Cafe. Go to shop Therivercafe dot co dot uk.
River Cafe Table four is a production of iHeartRadio and Adamized Studios. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.